If anyone could please share any feelings or thoughts about living with Dyspraxia, that could be used in my English coursework for college, I would be immensely grateful. I have a personal experience of Dyspraxia as my brother suffers from it and I have gained some experiences from him. However, it would be great to see if anyone elses feelings corroborate with his views. No names will be used if no one feels comfortable with it, but please say so!

It is really frustrating how everyone around you seems to be able to do really simple things like doing up some shoe laces and then when I try I just make a fool of myself and end up getting my finger trapped and I get frustrated because I can't do this "simple" thing.

And even worse, not many people understand what dyspraxia is and don't seem to understand how hard it can make life.

Thankyou very much for replying, I can understand that it would be very frustrating. I've found with my brother that he speaks really fast and loud and its quite hard for people to understand him, even though I understand him perfectly, and I know he gets frustrated with everyone telling him to slow down all the time. He has never really had trouble with physical things such as shoelaces or zips but he has a real problem with sports, but he has found that sports that you really have to focus in, like Archery, are really good for him and he has done really well in. I was wondering, do you have any problems socially or in busy areas?

I also say that frusetration which sometimes lead to anger. When I was little I use to get really angry over having dyspraxia, espically when I couldn't do something while other people my age could, I used to try and get dyspraxia out of me. I am now not as bad with my anger and I now like having dyspraxia, we may fall in certian areas which requires lots of co-ordination but in other areas such as imagination we are good at it, and I like having an imaginative mind. I also have problems with socailly as I have modrate-serve verbal dyspraxia, thoes who know me can mostly understand me 1st time but others who don't know me finds it hard to understand, as for busy places I will not speak to anyone as my mind is 'over working' and it difficult to think stiaght at these time, espically as I am trying to avoid people as well as objects. All the noise hurts my head.

I'd also agree on the term frustration, both in terms of how dyspraxia is perceived and how it is experienced.

What I find frustrating to a great extent is that I am often misjudged as being merely clumsy and weird as if it was my fault and I just have to try harder in oder to "outgrow" of the whole thing. Needless to say that I've grown tired of telling people all over again that I have dyspraxia and thus medical proof for being clumsy, that it is not my fault. I came across the term "invisible disability" and that gets to the heart of the matter (at least in my view).Besides, I also experience having trouble with things I am required having no trouble with, e.g. taking classes at uni and being able to remember in which room the class takes part instead of wandering around and being completely lost in a building I was having classes in before for a year.

However, to me living with dyspraxia doesn't necessarily rule out positive aspects. I enjoy meeting up with friends and I also do horseback riding, so being dyspraxic doesn't prevend me from doing a partciular kind of sports after all.

Finally .. in my opinion, having dyspraxia isn't the same for everybody. Whereas there may be common features in the way fine motor skills can be affected for instance, experiences can differ. Dyspraxia doesn't define me as a whole person, but it affects the way I am in various ways. (I hope that makes any sense at all)

AliceBevanResearch wrote:Thankyou very much for replying, I can understand that it would be very frustrating. I've found with my brother that he speaks really fast and loud and its quite hard for people to understand him, even though I understand him perfectly, and I know he gets frustrated with everyone telling him to slow down all the time. He has never really had trouble with physical things such as shoelaces or zips but he has a real problem with sports, but he has found that sports that you really have to focus in, like Archery, are really good for him and he has done really well in. I was wondering, do you have any problems socially or in busy areas?

Dsypraxia does affect people in lots of different ways. I usually just get frustrated with my fine motor skills (shoe laces e.t.c) but I'm often told as well I'm speaking to loudly and quickly and often if I speak no one else can speak because I don't pause. Usually in social situations I try my best to speak clearly and give time for others to speak and I even have some writing on my hand to remind me not to speak when someone else is speaking and to only say things relevant to the conversation. As for busy areas, I avoid them. I hate crowds with lots of noise and lots of people talking it just makes me scared and feel a bit sick and I feel like I'm boiling even if it is outside in the snow, if I'm in a crowd I just want to get out of the crowd the quickest way possible. Often at school if alot of people are going up the stairs I wait till there is no longer a crowd.